Through the Mist
by MinnieTheMoocherDA
Summary: After finding their brother commanding a star destroyer, Wolffe and Rex have to decide whether they are going to remove his chip. [Characters: Commander Wolffe, Commander Bly, Captain Rex, Plo Koon, Aayla Secura. Pairings: Blyla]


**A/N For celebrate-the-clone-wars writing Wednesday prompt: something in the mist.**

 **Lots of angst you have been warned!**

 **Hope you guys enjoy!!! Xxxxxxxxx**

"Are you sure we should be doing this?" Wolffe asked.

He looked down at the now unconscious body of his brother Bly who barely a few minutes ago had been trapped in a frenzied mess, unable to do anything except repeat that _good soldiers followed orders._

It had been years since Wolffe had heard those same words in his head, but even just hearing somebody else say them had felt like he was being sucked back into a nightmare.

"And let him live the rest of his life trapped in a lie? To be a slave to those words so that he justifies the atrocities he commits in the name of The Empire?" Rex said in response, his voice tired and aged beyond his thirty years. His brother then let out a long sigh before glancing up so that he could look into his matching golden eyes. "Do you wish you hadn't taken your chip out?"

Wolffe wasn't sure what to say. He knew Rex could never understand what he went through and he was glad he couldn't. Not a day went by that he didn't wish he had believed his brother sooner so that he could have taken that damned chip out before he was flying a ship only a few meters behind his general. He might not have been the one who fired the fatal shot, but he still pulled the trigger. And was happy when he watched him die.

At least he'd known about the chips existence beforehand which left him with enough sense to see past the all-encompassing mist to track down Rex so that he could remove it despite a never-ending klaxon in his head telling him that he was proud of what he did.

Whereas Bly hadn't had any knowledge of the chip until they'd found him stationed on a star destroyer only an hour ago. And when they told him, he couldn't seem to even comprehend its existence, the news sending him into a broken frenzy.

In his state it had been impossible to get him to consent to having it removed or not, which left Rex and Wolffe with no other choice than to make that decision for him. Hopefully before he broke his own mind.

Wolffe thought back to Rex's original question. He'd loved Plo Koon. He'd been like the father he'd never had. To feel guilt instead of elation at his death and to not have a voice screaming at him at every moment that killing him was right had given him immeasurable relief. But Bly hadn't just loved his general. He'd been _in love_ with his general. He wasn't sure if it would be a cruelty or a kindness to allow him to fully realise what he'd done.

"Why are you asking me? You're a Commander now too. We both have the same authority." Wolffe growled, unable to make a decision.

Thankfully Rex didn't react to his outburst. He'd gotten used to them over the years.

Rex sighed knowing if not fully understanding what he had the choice to put Bly through. but in the end, as someone who'd never had to carry out the order himself, the answer seemed obvious to him.

"I'm going to take the chip out." He told him, his voice carrying the same severity it had during the war. "If you say anything, anything at all, then I'll stop."

Wolffe nodded, not sure if he could trust himself to say anything that wasn't an indecipherable growl. Rex gave him an indescribable look before he knelt by their brother's side.

He watched with his one working eye as Rex held a device against the shaved skin of Bly's head in the same place his brother had one day held it against his own.

Unable to look away, he focused on the small whirring noise of the device that was currently removing the piece of machinery in his brother's head.

Wolffe held back a barking laugh. That was almost the worst part of all. That the thing that controlled them was a damned chip. That they really were just like the damn droids they'd lost their lives fighting against.

A few minutes later, the device beeped to signal that it had finished. There was no turning back now.

Rex carefully removed it from Bly's head, the chip now attached to it instead of their brother's mind. He then removed the chip and placed it on the floor so that he could blast it with his two pistols until it was nothing but ash. Wolffe wished he'd let him rip it to shreds first.

Rex then gently inserted a needle into Bly's neck and the pair waited with bated breath for their brother to wake it. It wouldn't have been the first time that a brother didn't.

Wolff let out a heavy sigh when he noticed his brother's eye's flickering from where he was laid along what passed for a medical table in The Rebellion.

A few moments later Bly opened them before looking up at the pair in a confused daze.

"Wolffe?" He asked. "Rex? What-"

His eyes then widened as though he was a blind man who had only now been able to see.

"The voices…" He breathed, his voice sounding lighter than air. "They're gone! I'm free! I-"

He cut himself off as for the first time, he was able to see through the mist.

Wolffe would never forget the look that crossed his brother's face. He prayed to whatever godly force was out there that he would never have to see it again.

Suddenly Bly leaned over the edge of table as the entire contents of his stomach regurgitated onto the floor. Wolffe and Rex rushed to help him sit up so that he didn't fall off the bed into his own sick.

"I didn't I… I didn't want to… I loved her. I would never…" Bly babbled, his mind an incomprehensible mess. He couldn't even look at Wolffe or Rex, his eyes stared unfocused on the disgusting mess at their feet, looking at something neither of them could see. "He made me… I didn't want to… he made me feel _proud-"_

The word raised another wave of food from his stomach which Wolffe narrowly missed as his brother vomited all over the floor once again. Together with Rex, he held Bly upright as he retched even more until there was nothing left to heave.

Once all he had left to heave was gasping, empty breathes, Bly turned to Wolffe with haunting, desperate eyes.

"I… I loved her… She was everything… I tried but I couldn't stop… I killed her…I killed her. I didn't want to but I killed her. I didn't want to! You have to believe me! I wouldn't-"

Wolffe felt his arms wrap around his brother until he held him firmly against himself, not caring about the vomit covered chin dripping down his shoulder.

"I know." Wolffe whispered as Bly continued to ramble against his shoulder, because more than Rex ever could, he knew exactly what his brother was going through.

" _I know."_


End file.
